


visions of a brighter love

by exyjunkies



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, aka the fic where i project my own life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exyjunkies/pseuds/exyjunkies
Summary: Allison reaches a realization about her feelings for Renee, and Neil is there to hear her out.
Relationships: Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (All For The Game), Jean Moreau/Renee Walker, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	visions of a brighter love

**Author's Note:**

> This is set a little after the events of TKM. Basically Allison is going through some Lesbian Yearning because, well, _I_ am going through some Lesbian Yearning. We will both be okay though!
> 
> If anyone cares, I'm also on [Tumblr](http://exyjunkies.tumblr.com)!

The latest epiphany was this: that there was a stark difference between liking someone and _caring_ about someone.

Allison never once thought she had the capability for such a realization while she was stick-checking at a practice game against Breckenridge, but alas. It hits her just as she successfully gets the ball from Breckenridge's rookie striker and makes a decent enough pass to Neil. And before she could properly process the thought, she was already mere seconds away from being bodied by an angry backliner. She dashes away, the attempt to elaborate on her emotions made significantly smaller by the desire for safety.

Kevin angles his shot a certain way, and the goal lights up, red and bright. The scoreboard declares a 2 on both sides, the tie making the crowd roar and coaches of both teams pound on the plexiglass and shout orders. Exhaling heavily, Allison absentmindedly bumps knuckles with Aaron. She goes back to position and tries so hard to not mind that they've reached the point where Andrew was going to switch out, because it really shouldn't matter, and it really shouldn't throw her off her game, not _now_ , not when they're so close, they're so _close, damn it_ —

She catches white hair with pink streaks and the flash of a smile on her periphery, and maybe her heart skip a few beats.

Faintly, Allison remembers the day Renee had gone to her for advice on hair dye, as if she had anything say even if she had lived her whole life having blonde hair. Still, it's not as if she had no taste at all. She had eyes that worked and the color palette Renee presented her with didn't pose too much of a challenge. More than anything, Allison remembers the way Renee smiled, nodding in agreement as Allison pointed at the shade of pink that she thought would look best. Allison had accompanied Renee to get the streaks done too, and had spent most of the time at the salon trying her best to stare at anything and anybody but Renee. Of course, this merely held off more suffering - Renee had proposed to treat her to sushi after, for being "such a good friend". Allison, for all she could've said, had agreed.

Well, whatever. It's not like she could've turned down sushi from anyone else either.

The game starts up again. The way Nicky plays Exy is something left to be desired, but it is to the team's advantage and Breckenridge's misfortune that Allison was flexible as a player. She signals for Nicky to help her by distracting the same backliner that came for her earlier. After Nicky gets the message, she moves quickly, making sure to stay in Neil's corner while looking out for the possibility that Kevin might need her too.

There was less than two minutes from the end of the game, and everyone was hungry for a win. Allison feels it in the way that the court floor seems to be electrified, in how the stadium lights seem to be brighter than they usually were. Aaron, about three feet northwest from her, shouts a warning and points at the ball, rolling across half-court with no one on it. Somehow this meant Allison being less alert about everything else, because in her haste to run to it, she gets knocked to the side.

"Jesus _fuck,_ " Allison swears, feeling the impact of the floor more than the player that body-checked her. Said player was Breckenridge's offensive dealer, who was busy shouting at the referee and denying that she had a violation. Allison gets up and ignores Nicky's proffered hand, choosing instead to readjust her helmet. There was a radiating pain by her hipbone, but she's gotten worse hits before.

“You okay?” Neil says, the concern in his voice more for her than for the outcome of the game. Allison manages a thumbs up, silently thankful that it wasn’t Kevin who came by her. The asshole probably would check up on her _and_ make a mean comment about her faulty approach in the same goddamn breath.

“Good,” the striker replies, and before Allison could manage an actual verbal reply, follows up with, “I was asking for… y’know.”

 _Christ_. Allison does the mature thing of nudging past Neil very, very hard, the impact of her shoulder enough to get the point across. She pointedly ignores Neil’s laugh, and steels herself for the remainder of the game as the referee blows the whistle.

Leave it to the Foxes to be in other people’s business and manifest being in other people’s business at inappropriate moments.

The dealer who body-checked Allison doesn’t get reprimanded, which was up to par with Allison’s expectations. They were both women, so that was one thing , but the other thing was this: a call-out in the final minute of a practice game was just going to add unnecessary fuel to the flame. The fact that it was _just a practice game_ was also something to consider. Both coaches knew this, most especially Wymack, so the dealer was let go scot-free. But if anyone knew the Fox-Jackal rivalry, they knew that this body check (regardless of the setting) was going to come back for the Jackals in some other way and on some other time.

Neil and Kevin have this in-game connection that no one else seemed to understand, but it was more than enough. Allison sees, in Kevin’s hand signals and Neil’s head movement, the Foxes’ path to victory. For about fifteen seconds, she keeps the ball with her, using Aaron as a buffer to get to Neil. Then, just as the clock ticks down the final ten seconds, Neil side-steps and swiftly maneuvers the ball towards the opposing goal. The Breckenridge goalkeeper doesn’t have the footwork to block anything expertly shot towards them, and everybody knows this. The ball hits the goal, and Allison hears nothing but loud, almost deafening cheers from the crowd. She lets her racket fall to the floor, and closes her eyes, feeling the relief of the victory wash over her. As she takes off her helmet, Allison works on slowing down her breathing, and turns to face the Foxes that were busy getting Neil into a victory carry.

Later, it would be all happiness and loss of sobriety at the after-party, which Wymack always so generously turned a blind eye to if they’d gotten the win. It may have taken quite a long time for her to get to this point, but Allison sees the Foxes as family, and would gladly give up her life for any one of them if she had to. But under no circumstances would she ever openly admit to everyone that she _may_ have had considerable breakthroughs with her personal emotional dilemma. These breakthroughs, Allison knows, weren’t clear-cut enough to be considered final, and she knows the whole processing part was a lot more tiring. The fact that she even _had_ an emotional dilemma wasn’t even public knowledge – Dan knows because she was Dan, and Neil knows because he caught her crying in the locker room once. But everyone else will have to be left with their speculations (which Allison was pretty fucking sure they had, she wasn’t _that_ stupid).

-*-

Later that night, Neil finds Allison in one corner of the dorm room she shares with Renee, slumped down to the floor and staring at the beer she had in her hand. It wasn’t the best place to be, considering that everyone else was in the monsters’ dorm room and living it up one of the best ways they knew how: through karaoke and copious amounts of alcohol. Vaguely, Allison hears something about how the football team also was here, and Nicky’s loud _you guys can only come in if you BYOB— oh, okay that’s not bad_.

A part of Allison hopes that their cute linebacker, a self-assured redhead named Carmen, was there too. They met in French class the previous semester, and it was no surprise to Allison when Carmen told her that she was a full-fledged lesbian. It wasn’t as if Carmen was seeing anyone, and it wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with winking at her from afar. Possibly some flirting. Maybe even some making out against a door. Some under-the-shirt action, a couple of hickeys. If consent was clearly on the table and luck was by the universe’s side, they could even reach third base. Allison had no problems at all with the idea of with dealing with the attraction. She was, at the very least, sober enough to know that.

She was also sober enough to know that, even as the idea of approaching Carmen seemed good in her head, she knew she’d fuck up somehow, because _Renee Renee Renee_ would blare through her brain like a siren.

Allison pats the spot of floor next to her and manages a shaky smile at Neil. “You really choosing to be with the loser tonight, Josten?”

Even in her state of sadness, Neil apparently has it in him to scoff in reply. He sets his own drink to the side as he slides down to the floor beside Allison. “I don’t think it’s bad for me to choose to comfort a friend.”

“Gonna pretend that Dan didn’t send you here, then.”

“Because she really didn’t. Wanna talk about it?”

Allison’s head lolls towards Neil, and she sees his blue eyes, the sparkle in them something that never seemed to die. Neil’s left hand was outstretched, more of a polite offering than a forced request, because _of course_ he knows that Allison likes to platonically hold hands whenever she wasn’t busy putting up the tough girl façade. Allison rolls her eyes, but places her hand in his anyway, her fingers lightly curling into the spaces between Neil’s.

“I don’t know. I’ve been… thinking lately. About my… the Renee situation. And it probably doesn’t help, but I only really talk to Dan about this, so my perception of things is one-pronged and very much geared towards self-recovery because. Well. Dan is Dan. Friend first, of course, but Foxes captain second. And she’s not the type to baby anyone—well, maybe Boyd, whenever he needs his soft moments. But she never once babied me. So right off the bat, she’s told me to get my shit together, and administer the no-contact rule, and accept the fact that things will never happen, especially now that Renee is seeing—well, whoever he is.”

Neil leans his head back against the wall. “Jean.”

“Yeah. They see each other more often now. They want to maximize the two weeks before classes start again. I know I try my best to be okay about it but… _God_. It’s so hard. Renee talks to me about it too often for me to be completely okay about it. About how Jean and her went to this restaurant and tried the new specials and Jean almost threw up because he couldn’t understand the way Americans’ taste buds worked. About how Jean got Renee new knives, each wooden handle with ‘Walker’ engraved on it. About how Renee successfully convinced Jean to get matching tattoos, and not,” Allison puts up exaggerated finger quotation marks, ““the gross, annoying his/her ones”. About how Renee thinks this is the happiest she’s been in quite some time. About how she’s thankful that I’m there to support her through it all. _Fuck_. I don’t want to feel this anymore, Neil.”

And just like that, Allison's head was on Neil’s shoulder, the first few tears choosing now as the perfect moment to streak through her mascara. Neil sighs and scooches closer to her, lowering his shoulder. They sit like that for a while, the room a silent witness to Allison’s quiet sobs and Neil’s occasional sip of beer. Allison thinks about the weight on her chest wanting to be set free, thinks about how hard it is to keep wanting something she can’t have. The tears in her eyes felt stingy, almost hot, and Allison blinks to let more of them go. Somewhere in her mind she is thankful that she didn’t put that much effort in her makeup tonight.

“Just a few hours ago, I had this epiphany,” Allison continues, sniffling and shaking her head. “I guess I finally figured out what caring about someone actually meant. What it meant apart from, and I guess in relation to, just liking someone.”

“This situation really got you being a sap, huh.”

Allison nudges Neil with her elbow. “ _Listen_. This is some groundbreaking shit. You gotta be ready.”

Neil’s smile is amused, teasing along the edges. “Okay, Reynolds. Impress me.”

Sighing, Allison lifts her head back up and looks at the ceiling. The crack near the light seems like a good thing to focus on. “When I say I like Renee, I mean it like how it is. I like her because the attraction is there. I’m attracted to her physically – I’m drawn to her looks, to the way she carries herself, to her sense of style. I’m attracted to her intellectually too. When we talk, we talk for _hours_. We never run out of things to say. We get into debates sometimes and there’s never really a point of contention where we see eye to eye, so we just end up leaving the conflict unresolved. We like the same things, and when we introduce each other to things we like, there’s no judgment. I’m attracted to her emotionally, in the way that when I see her, my chest sort of… tenses up? I feel like my heartbeat is on times three speed and… and it’s like I’m suddenly hyper-aware of the way I’m breathing, the way I must look because _wow_ she is here and she is everything and it’s like she doesn’t know, and _Christ_ do I wanna let her know.

“But when I say I _care_ about Renee, I mean it in the way that liking her suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter, and it shouldn’t matter, because in the long run, what really matters to me is that she is happy. Something essential to my own happiness is her happiness. And I’d be stupid if I didn’t see that Jean makes her happy. I guess it’s just a matter of… of learning to be okay with the fact that she isn’t that kind of happy with me.

“And it’s taking time for me to get there, but I think I’m making good enough progress. Healing is a bitch though, right?” Allison laughs then, just a little, as she realizes that she has never ached this much before. Neil nods encouragingly, signaling for her to continue.

“So I have my good days, but I also have my bad days, so I’m doing my best to not downsize it too much when it gets bad. And I’ve gotten pretty okay at it, you know? There are days where I yearn for it, where the wanting gets _too much_ , and those are the days I just… disappear. I function like a normal human being in school, and I don’t ditch the Foxes, because I can never really do that to Coach or to the team, but the moment practice is over, I run out the locker room and go to a place where I know that no one is smart enough to go to just to look for me.”

“And Renee just… never asked?”

Oh, did Renee _ask_. The first time Allison had gone off to be alone, the messages had been consistent, an on-the-hour stream of _where are you_ ’s and _I’m worried, can you at least tell me you’re okay_ ’s and, at some point, one _even Dan doesn’t know where you are, why is that?_ Allison had been close to throwing her phone away, but instead chose to turn it off, and went to the dancefloor to dance her girl problems away. The second time, when Allison had chosen a lowkey bar to drink her sorrows away, Renee had resorted to calling every forty-five minutes, ending the series of calls by leaving a voicemail or two around 11:30 PM. Allison had stumbled into the dorm room at half past midnight, and she saw Renee passed out on her own bed, her phone held tightly on her torso.

“Of course she asked. I just never gave her the satisfaction of a reply. She let me be eventually.”

“You really shouldn’t go off without anyone knowing though—”

“Dan knows, stupid. Congrats, now you know too.”

Neil makes a face, and lightly knocks Allison’s head to the side. Allison snorts and chooses this time to down the rest of her beer. It was her third, if she wasn’t mistaken. A light, bubbly feeling courses through Allison, and she wishes it wasn’t coupled with the desire to throw up. Three beers was _just_ three beers, but she _did_ down two of them within an hour.

“Most days, though. Most days, I’m okay, and I’m able to coexist with Renee and _not_ want to disintegrate. These are the days when I want the least out of everything I could want. These are the days when it is enough for me to just be where she is, to just hear what she’s up to, to just hear that she’s doing okay. It is enough for me to be on the same court she is, to be winning the same games and to be part of the same awesome team. Because the truth of it is, I’m just so fucking _tired_ of wanting something I can’t have. So to just… be in her life, even if it’s just at _this_ level… most days, it is enough. And it will have to be enough.”

Allison crushes the beer can in her left hand and exhales shakily, the current feeling of yearning mostly lost to her emotional outburst. The look on Neil’s face is one of understanding, one that _knows_ what it is like to want and hurt because of it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Allison checks the clock on their bedside table, and sees 12:45 AM. Around this time, the Foxes would be at the peak of the party, and it would last for another two hours at most. Allison could hear the pulse of the music from where she was seated, and it didn’t sound like it was a dead party by any means, even if she had kept Neil here with her for probably the past hour.

And not that it mattered, but Allison knows that Renee was probably looking for her too. Around 10 in the evening, Allison had gotten three slices of pizza and hightailed it out of there, mentally thanking her stars that she had a six-pack of beer in her own mini-fridge. She had stayed in this corner of their room since then, not wanting to go back even if the win was celebratory by all means. So it would not surprise her at all if, say, Renee casually asked around for her whereabouts. It really wouldn’t.

“Josten, isn’t your monster looking for you?” Allison asks, because he really could be, and she knows better than to get in the way of _that_. Allison’s head is now back on Neil’s shoulder, and she does her best to sniffle and keep her snot to herself.

“Andrew?” Neil smiles a bit, and sets his head gently on top of Allison’s. Allison feels the vibration of a soft laugh coming from Neil. “He’d text if he needed me. I told him I needed to take care of something, and I guess it’s a blessing that, at least for tonight, he trusts me enough to not ask about it, or to follow me here.

“Funny you bring Andrew up, because I _was_ going to tell you a bit about us, just so I have something to bring to the table. Dan probably gives her advice from where she and Matt are in the whole spectrum of relationships, as well as from her own personal experience, and I respect that. But if anybody knew anything about Andrew and I, it’s that we probably violate what most people would consider are healthy standards for relationships. Andrew has the tendency to just shut up whenever he feels like it’s useless to say anything more, I have the tendency to say things that I know would piss him off and get the response I don’t necessarily need. Whenever I run in the morning and it’s not with Kevin, Andrew sometimes freaks out and has to repeatedly get assurance from me that I’m not running away. Whenever Andrew goes out on drives and doesn’t leave a note, I stay up until the next morning waiting for him to come back and render myself absolutely useless for my classes.

“But we’re able to make things work because at the end of the day, there still exists in us the _desire_ to make things work, and the knowledge that, even if things seem unsure at times, we know where we stand, and we know where to place ourselves in each other’s lives. And that’s what I want for you, Allison. I see that you have the desire to make the friendship work, even if it’s hard on you now, but I guess what I could offer you is this: it would be easier if you knew where to place yourself, both now and in moving forward. Because as much as this whole coexisting thing sounds like a good thing on the surface, it would do nothing but hold you back later on.”

All Allison could do right now is look down at the floor, at where her right foot met Neil’s left foot. He was right, and she hated that he was right. All she could do was sigh, and Neil plants a soft kiss on the top of her head when she does.

“Josten, does it ever get easier?” Allison asks. “All this wanting.”

Neil hums, the question put in front of him seemingly a challenge of his own past as much as it was a concern of Allison’s present. Allison closes her eyes, and wonders when the last time she was ever this honest with another man was. Not even Seth – bless his soul – had gotten this much out of her. She feels worn out from all the vulnerability, but she also knows that she needed this. She supposes it was a good thing that she was learning to open up and to be okay about opening up.

“From my own experience, I think you just learn to live with it,” Neil says, and Allison feels his hold on her hand grow a bit tighter. “And at the end of it all will be the person you’re meant to be and the life you’re meant to live.”

Allison nods. “Okay,” she breathes, and a multitude of emotions leaves her as she exhales. “Okay.”

Because in this moment, she really was okay. And hours from now, she was going to wake up to a Saturday morning of Dan making pancakes for her and Renee, and they were going to empty their makeover fund jar and get mani-pedis and massages and Allison will cover whatever costs were extra because that’s the way things worked. Later in the afternoon, she and Renee would watch a movie, like they always did, except this week it was Allison’s turn to pick the movie, and she took great care to pick something that _wasn’t_ romantic. It was _I Am Sam_ , and based off the reviews, Allison was sure the both of them were going to cry, even if Renee wasn’t the type to cry. Then in the evening, if Renee and Jean weren’t going out, Allison would drag Renee over to the monsters’ dorm room, and beat Aaron and Nicky in Mariokart. They would have the best fucking time, and Allison would laugh and hear Renee laughing too and, like always, ignore the way her heart jumps at the sound of Renee laughing.

“Hey, Allison?” Neil says, just as Allison was moving to get up from the floor. Allison makes a face at the ache in her ass from sitting too long, but still keeps holding Neil’s hand. She drags Neil to stand up with her.

“Yeah?” Allison bends to pick up her crushed beer can, evidence of a contained meltdown. She looks at Neil, whose auburn hair was a little tousled and dull now. She really needed to drag him with her to the salon sometime soon.

“I’m proud of you.” Neil moves forward to hug her, and as Allison wraps her arms around him, all she feels is the relief that she has someone who understands. She buries her face in Neil’s shoulder, and they stay like that for who knows how long, just holding each other. Neil keeps his hug gentle yet firm, and Allison feels, for the first time in a long time, how good it feels to be kept together.


End file.
